8 Times Marvel Blatantly Hinted At Captain America's Death In The MCU

Although Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark started the Marvel Cinematic Universe with 2008's Iron Man, Chris Evans has arguably become the heart and soul of the entire franchise. He has genuinely grown into the role of Steve Rogers over the course of the last six years, and the Captain America movies have become some of the most consistently entertaining entries in the entire MCU. That said, all good things must eventually come to an end, and recent rumors have suggested the fact that Chris Evans may want to hang up his vibranium shield after next year's The Avengers: Infinity War debuts.

If Chris Evans genuinely intends to step down from his role as Captain America after Infinity War, then this leads us to believe that Marvel may have him die at the hands of Josh Brolin's Thanos -- thus mirroring a famous moment from the comics. It's a significant move for Marvel to make, but it seems like they've already hinted at it before. On that note, we've gone through the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and picked out eight times that this long-running film franchise has hinted at Cap making the ultimate sacrifice. There are plenty of heroic moments for us to discuss, but let's kick this list off with an incident from his pre-super soldier days.

Jumping On The Grenade

It's no secret that Steve Rogers was a heroic son of a bitch even before his selection for Project Rebirth, and scrawny Steve proved that he was entirely willing to sacrifice himself during the first act of The First Avenger. As you'll recall, Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) tossed a dud grenade into a group of soldiers, and Steve selflessly jumped on it to protect everyone. Right then and there, the Marvel Cinematic Universe set up the fact that he's willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of those around him.

Crashing Red Skull's Plane

Although the dud grenade served as a bit of a dry run in terms of self-sacrifice, the climax of The First Avenger allowed Steve to properly give himself up in the name of a higher cause by crashing Red Skull's (Hugo Weaving) war plane into the North Atlantic. Cap obviously lived to fight another day in the 21st century alongside Earth's mightiest heroes, but he never expected to survive this crash when he said his goodbyes to Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and downed the plane before it could reach New York.